I started out as a broadcast journalist, but fate took its course when I literally fell in love at first sight with my husband of 33 years. I then taught school, of various subjects and age groups and now write about food, health, humor and life.

Friday, August 13, 2010

When a Home is a House

More often than not-I refer to our abode as “home”. There are times when it is a house.

There’s a difference. A home (for me) is a place you want to be-warm, cozy, inviting, like chenille throw on a cold evening.

The same structure becomes a house when you have parts of it missing, are waiting for strangers to come in an fix it, feel as if you have just opened your wallet and numerous people are asking you for your credit card and quite frankly-you’re thinking that there has got to be a clean, quiet spot you could just go lay down in and get some rest without having to worry that something else is going to go wrong.

A few weeks ago my husband had the audacity to notice some “bubbling” paint in the laundry room and then touch it enough to know that the drywall was mushy, followed by the discovery that our linoleum and precious wood floors were also quite wet.

Yes, we endured 6-1/2 days of fans and de-humidifiers blowing and sucking, workers pulling out the walls, door framing, insulation, etc and then the obvious of someone else putting it all back in. We also had the leak detection firm who fixed the 6-8” piece of pipe with the pinhole in it that caused the entire and latest fiasco.

Now as if that weren’t enough-this was like some sort of epiphany for my husband to suggest the following:

1-Let’s just go for it and put in a new countertop for the downstairs bathroom.Now this actually sounded like a plan-until we measured the stupid cabinet and found that again, the fine developers of our 1989 abode did NOT put in a standard vanity! The old one is NOT 24”-its 25-1/8”.

For those of you who don’t know what this means in “re-model speak”-you can’t go in to your local home improvement store and buy a new countertop “off the rack”.

Nope. After exploring several semi-custom companies and a custom option-turned out the most reasonable option was to buy a “bath-in-a-box” and a new faucet. Luckily for us, there was an antique copper 1 hole faucet that we actually liked and matched the towel bar, toilet paper holder and lighting that we have in that bathroom.

2-Since they have to put in new wood and the place will be a complete mess, now’s the time to call that guy who advertises that he can take out your ugly 1980’s light fixture and make it into a beautiful tray ceiling, complete with crown molding and update your kitchen.

I guess we were lucky times are slow-normally he charges $400 for that crown molding, but the summer sale was that he included this step.

3-My husband, whom is fast becoming “the former Mr. Moneybags” decided that since we were doing the other 2 steps, now was the time to replace those rather old and cat-scratched kitchen blinds for faux wood ones.

Thankfully, those were an easy project! Off the rack and done in a couple of hours.

We won’t be done for at least a month. The biggest project of ripping out some 1200 square feet of plank wood flooring and then putting it all back in won’t happen until early September.

It could have been done earlier-but then life happens and our daughter and her family are here with us right now as you are reading this entry. Then we’re going to a family wedding at the end of the month-so there’s no sense putting in new floors while our son and daughter-in-law and the grand furbabies come and watch the now very sick Sunshine and our cat Pepper.

Hey, if anymore is going to happen to the “house”-let it happen while it’s already a mess. Because when we get back, we want to come “home”.

Puts a knot in my stomach just to read this. Dealing with repairmen and remodeling folk is something I rue. Sounds like your projects are coming along well. Great too that you can agree on what needs to be done and how. My wife and I usually can agree on what needs to be done, but often can't settle on the how and when.

About Me

I've always wanted to be a writer, so I'm doing that now! I started out doing broadcast journalism, fell in love at first sight and got married. I put aside my journalism career to raise our family and run a pre-school and day care business. After our kids were officially out of school-I decided to start free-lancing again. Much easier but less financially pleasing with the internet.

Hoping to be able to make a permanent go of writing, since I love the written word and the reaction it still gets.